The fashion world has seen its share of controversy lately. Models packing machine guns. Wearing gas masks and native american headdresses. And that's american model ondria hardin, posing in a spread titled "african queen" in "numero" magazine. Shocking to some because this is what hardin normally looks like. Black face is such a controversy because it has a tainted history. Reporter: The online response, fierce. Comments like horrendous. This is 2013. It must be a publicity stunt. And, shame and double-shame on this magazine. On wednesday, "numero" apologized and said it never wanted to offend anyone. And blamed the photographer. Saying, numero has always worked with photographers who illustrate its pages. And has not took part in the process of this editorial. For his part, kim said in a statement to abc news, he never meant to portray a black woman. Saying, I thought the unfortunate title did a lot to further people's miscon semss about these images. Former model cynthia bailey thought she thought the model was bronzed until she read the title. That's when I started to question. Is this a black girl? Is this a white girl? Once they wanted to make the theme of the story or the concept of the story "african queen," there's so many beautiful, young, african-american models or african models they could have used for the story. Reporter: Cynthia is quick to point out she doesn't blame hardin because models rarely know what their photos are going to be used or how they're going to be used in magazines. That brings us back to the editors of the magazine. And they make those decisions. Interestingly, folks, it's a french magazine. And this kerfuffle has not been experienced in france like it is in this country.

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